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JULY 27, 2017

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INSIDE THIS ISSUEMacron’s speech

Analyzing why Macron’s speech about the Holocaust in France is considered groundbreaking.

Story on page 7

From the past A cache of 75 original Nazi objects discovered in Argentina has been evaluated as “unprecedented.”

Story on page 11

Jewish innovators The Return on Investment Summit in Jerusalem hosted young Jewish leaders from 29 countries.

Story on page 5

July 28 .......................................... 8:06 pmAugust 4 ...................................... 7:58 pmAugust 11 ..................................... 7:49 pm

Federation on Facebook

The Jewish Federation of Northeast-ern Pennsylvania now has a page on Facebook to let community members know about upcoming events and keep connected.

The

Jewish Federation of Northeastern PennsylvaniaPublished by the

VOLUME X, NUMBER 14

The Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania has invited the community to see the mentalist duo Jeff and Tessa Evason on Saturday, October 21, at the Scranton JCC’s Koppelman Auditorium. They will perform a brand of “mind pow-er” at a show that is said to generate “a great deal of amazement and enthusiasm.”

Doors will open at 8 pm and the show will start at 8:30 pm. A table for 10 people can be reserved for $100. Single admission tickets are also available for $15 in advance or $20 at the door. To purchase tickets, visit https://evasons.eventbrite.com or call the Federation office at 570-961-2300, ext 4. For more information about the event, visit www.jewishnepa.org.

Since 1983, the Evasons, who are based in Toronto and Annapolis, have performed for audiences around the world. People have been noted to react “with wide-eyed wonder” when the Evasons demonstrate their “psychic entertainment abilities,” such as “ESP, intuition, prediction and second sight.” The show features inter-active demonstrations, comic relief and entertainment that is said to not be “a

Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania brings award-winning mentalist duo to Scranton

magic show.” There are no wires or hidden communication devices. Nothing is prear-ranged with secret assistants or audience members. The Evasons offer $100,000 to anybody who can prove otherwise.

“The experience defies explanation. And maybe that’s why the crowds go wild at every show,” said organizers of the event.

The Evasons spend much of their year on the road performing for audiences at colleges, corporate events, theaters, cruis-es and casino showrooms. They have also performed for millions through network television programs. On NBC’s “World’s Greatest Magic V,” they were called “the finest act of its kind in the world,” while their performance on Fox’s “Powers of the Paranormal” was touted as “the most amazing mind reading act you will ever see.” The Discovery Channel has hailed them as “a new generation of mentalists.”

Additionally, Siegfried and Roy named the Evasons their favorite act, presenting them with the SARMOTI Award at the World Magic Seminar in Las Vegas. They are said to be recognized by their peers and

Tessa and Jeff Evason

fans as one the world’s top mentalist acts, and they have received the Psychic En-tertainers Association’s most prestigious honor for distinguished professionalism.

“Many times during our show, people are totally speechless because they’ve never seen anything like this before,” said Jeff. “The experience of wonder is not only magical and mysterious, it can also be empowering and enlightening.”

Tessa is said to enjoy speaking with audi-ence members after the show. She explained, “Jeff and I are fortunate to have a close

connection. A lot of people are searching for their soul mate. I’ve always believed that we should allow ourselves to trust intuition. It can help us make much better decisions about important personal matters.”

The Evasons think it’s good for peo-ple to be skeptical and to ask questions about things they don’t understand. “A lot of things that up until recently were considered to be a mystery can now easily be explained by science,” said Jeff. “How-ever, the greatest mystery of all is still the human mind.” Tessa added, “As more is learned about the human brain, the human mind seems even more mysterious!”

Even though the Evasons don’t ask peo-ple to believe, they argue it becomes easier to suspend disbelief once someone sees Tessa blindfolded, calling out the names of strangers, reciting the serial numbers from a bill in an audience member’s pocket or telling people their grandmother’s name.

The Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania is a non-profit organization serving the needs of the Jewish communi-ties of Scranton, the Poconos and around the world.

BY RAFAEL MEDOFFJNS.org

WASHINGTON, DC – Anti-Israel bias in the textbooks used by many American high schools may be to blame for the decrease in sympathy for Israel among young adults.

According to the Brand Israel Group, only 54 percent of U.S. college students lean more toward Israel than the Pales-tinians, down from 73 percent in 2010. The decrease was even sharper among Jewish college students, dropping from 84 percent to 57 percent.

“The problem starts in high school,” Dr. Sandra Alfonsi, longtime director of Hadassah’s “Curriculum Watch” division, told JNS.org. “There’s no doubt the lack of sympathy for Israel on college cam-puses today is at least partly the result of several generations of teenagers being educated with textbooks that are slanted against Israel.”“UNABASHED PROPAGANDIZING”

One of the most controversial texts used in high schools around the country is the “Arab World Studies Notebook,” a 540-page volume authored by Audrey Parks Shabbas. She heads Arab World and Islamic Resources and School Services, a curriculum publisher that seeks to promote a positive image of Arabs and Muslims in U.S. schools.

After parents in Anchorage, AK, com-plained to their local Board of Education in

Biased textbooks turning young Americans against Israel, research shows

conquerors throughout the ages for their “gentle treatment of civilian populations.”

As a result, the Anchorage Board of Education removed the “Notebook” from the local high school curriculum. School authorities in Tulsa, OK, have also with-drawn the text.

Shabbas has claimed the “Notebook” has been distributed to more than 10,000 teachers, and “if each notebook teaches 250 students a year over 10 years, then you’ve reached 25 million students.”

“The most important statistic is the number of workshops that Shabbas has given to instruct teachers in how to use the book,” Curriculum Watch’s Alfonsi said. “She has conducted hundreds of such three-day teacher-training sessions.” Shabbas’ website names 211 schools where she ran teacher workshops from 2000-2006. Other years are not listed.

Shabbas did not respond to requests for comment from JNS.org.DISPUTE IN MASSACHUSETTS

The Committee for Accuracy in Mid-dle East Reporting in America recently published a 108-page monograph, “In-doctrinating Our Youth,” which describes how high schools in the Boston suburb of Newton have been using biased texts such as the “Arab World Studies Notebook” and inviting anti-Israel speakers to address their students.

The controversy began in 2011, when a Newton South High School parent

complained about a passage from the “Notebook” accusing Israel of torturing and murdering hundreds of Palestinian women. Other parents soon joined the protests. Matt Hills, vice chairman of the Newton School Committee, dismissed the critics as “McCarthyesque.”

In early 2012, Newton Superintendent of Schools David Fleishman said the “Notebook” had been removed from the curriculum because it was “outdated.” But an investigation by Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a Boston-based activist group, found that the “Notebook” was still being used in Newton as late as the 2013-2014 school year.

The dispute has been complicated by the refusal of Newton school authorities to identify which Israel-related materi-als were being used by teachers. Many

The cover page of the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America’s recently published monograph, “Indoctrinating Our Youth,” which describes how high schools in the Boston suburb of Newton have been using anti-Israel texts. (Photo by CAMERA)

2004 about the book’s slant against Israel, the American Jewish Committee prepared a 30-page analysis of the “Notebook.” The AJC found it to be riddled with “overt bias and unabashed propagandizing,” such as depicting Israel as the aggressor in every Arab-Israeli war and praising Muslim

See “Textbooks” on page 6

THE REPORTER ■ JULY 27, 20172

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BY STEPHEN BRYEN AND ANDREW APOSTOLOUJNS.org

In May 2017, a man with a meat cleaver threatened customers in two Jewish stores in northern London. Although people called the police, the first responders came from a volunteer Jewish security organization, the Shomrim. They sprang into action, isolating the man and the area before armed police arrived. It was the same story in mid-June, when a van hit numerous worshippers outside the Fins-bury Park mosque in northern London. Again, the Shomrim were quickly on the scene helping the wounded.

The Shomrim are civilians who have police and security training, and who patrol the streets. Like their counterparts in the U.K.’s Community Security Trust , which has dozens of full-time staffers who are seen outside synagogues and schools – the Shomrim are Jewish auxiliaries to the police. The British police cannot be everywhere and cannot know every community. The CST and the Shomrim provide that vital extra layer of protection, reassuring the broader public and showing the authorities that British Jews are serious about security.

By contrast, the American Jewish community is unprepared for today’s security problems. Whereas British Jews made a strategic decision decades ago to take their own security seriously, the U.S. lacks a similar commitment. This failure to make security a core component of Jewish

American Jews need to make security central to communal work

communal life leaves synagogues, day schools, community centers and Jewish organizations vulnerable. Despite the attacks – some of them fatal – targeting American Jews, the community has been largely apathetic in taking protective measures.

The time has come for a complete change in attitude. American Jews need to make security an integral part of in-stitutional administration and take steps to improve the security of every Jewish institution. They should not rely solely on the police, who have other priorities, to proactively protect Jewish institutions. Nor should they expect the intelligence and security services to thwart plots at the planning stages – most recent jihadi attacks have come as surprises.

On a national level, this means building up communal security resources. For ex-ample, there is already a group called the Community Security Service that provides training to synagogues, schools and other organizations. The CSS has trained some 3,000 volunteers and should be tasked with training many more.

Complementing the national re-sponse, each Jewish organization must take three measures: observation, pro-tection and training.

Observation means being aware of your surroundings and immediately reporting odd behavior. Potential attackers often scout their targets. The white nationalist who killed three people outside a Jewish Community Center and a Jewish retire-ment home near Kansas City in 2014 previously had driven up to the JCC and parked in front multiple times. Similarly, an Islamic State sympathizer currently on trial for planning to bomb an Aventura, FL, synagogue in 2016 went to see the building “to assess its vulnerabilities,” prosecutors have reported.

Protection means armed guards. These should be professionals with radios linked directly to local police. Armed guards act as a deterrent. In the extreme scenario of an assault with firearms, the armed guards slow down the attackers and seek to confine them to one area until law enforcement arrives. Armed guards can help save lives. Unarmed guards do

not have lifesaving resources to hold off an attack.

Unarmed volunteers should support the armed guards. The volunteers can patrol outside buildings and show a security presence that deters would-be attackers carrying out reconnaissance. Training in-volves providing communities – including synagogue congregants and staffers – with focused and relevant security practices. They will learn, with training and practice, what to look for in assessing a potential threat. They also need to know how to manage an evacuation or lockdown, a knife attack, an active shooter, a bomb threat and other security situations.

These security measures would demon-strate that American Jewish organizations are serious about their own futures and will rise to protect themselves.

Stephen Bryen was the U.S. deputy under secretary of defense for trade security policy and the founding director of the Defense Technology Security Administration. Andrew Apostolou is a security and foreign affairs analyst based in Washington, DC.

Why this Israeli official can’t stay silent about Linda Sarsour

BY DANI DAYAN(JTA) – Now that the furor over

Linda Sarsour’s commencement speech at CUNY’s Graduate School of Public Health is over, it is the right time for me to draw some conclusions and express some thoughts surrounding the event.

I had intended to weigh in earlier, and I could. It is not a domestic American issue in which a foreign diplomat is not entitled to intervene; it involves my country.

Sarsour, the former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York, supports calls to boycott Israel. She shows understanding, to say the least, toward acts of terror targeting Israelis and defames Zionism, the national liberation movement that established Israel. Most important, she implicitly and sometimes explicitly advances the heinous idea that Israel has no right to exist.

Therefore, as the senior diplomatic en-voy of Israel in New York, it was my right – and probably my duty – to intervene.

Nevertheless, except for raising the is-sue once when CUNY Chancellor Michael Milliken called me on a different issue, I did not intervene. The main reason was the anti-Sarsour rally that took place outside CUNY premises on May 25. Some of the speakers there engaged in blatantly racist

rhetoric, above all Milo Yiannopoulos, the “alt-right” personality.

The mere participation of Yian-nopoulos in the rally – let alone his words – was abhorrent: He is on record defending pedophilia. The moment this individual and his followers co-opted the cause against Sarsour’s invitation, I felt compelled to step back. Add the reports about physical threats against Sarsour and her family, and I decided to keep silent. It was not the first time, nor unfortunately the last, in which extremists damage a just cause.

Among the other events surrounding the affair, the most annoying was the letter signed by more than 100 Jewish leaders – some of them my personal friends – in defense of Sarsour. Obvi-ously I agree with their condemnation of threats to Sarsour, but I read with great consternation the following paragraph: “We may not agree with Sarsour on all matters. We do not offer our stamp of approval to every tweet or message she has ever posted. But in this time – we are committed to bridging communal boundaries and standing in solidarity with one another. With Sarsour and others, we work as allies on issues of shared concern and respectfully disagree when

our views diverge.”Every tweet or message? Respectfully

disagree when our views diverge?Condoning terrorism, embracing con-

victed assassin Rasmea Odeh, excluding Zionists from the feminist movement and denying the right of the Jewish state to exist can be minimized that way? Are not these morally abhorrent positions of the same magnitude like the apologetics for pedophilia? That is not “bridging communal boundaries.” It is coming to terms with bigotry.

There are positions – like those of Yiannopoulos – that make collaboration with their holders on any matter an ethical wrongdoing. For example, you do not col-laborate with a racist on any matter. You do not collaborate with a sexual offender on any matter.

And as Jews, as lovers of Israel, as progressive Americans and above all as ethical human beings, you should not col-laborate – on any matter – with a person that condones terrorism, excludes Zionists and wants Israel eliminated.

It is not about “approving a tweet.” It is about your moral priorities as a Jew and as a human being.

Dani Dayan is the consul general of Israel in New York.

BY DAVID KRAEMER(JTA) – The Trump administration’s de-

cision to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement has demanded that we all ask ourselves where we stand on questions of climate change, global warming and our collective responsibility for the planet we call home.

That the earth has been warming in recent years is indisputable. At issue are the causes of this warming and its con-sequences.

The vast majority of scientists agree that human activities are a significant contributor to global warming, and that the consequences will be significant and even

Judaism requires us to pursue the goals of the Paris climate accords

catastrophic. If average global tempera-tures rise just a little further, not only will vast populations be “inconvenienced,” but environments will shift, food supplies will be disrupted, severe weather events will be more common, animal species will be eradicated and more – all at a rate unprecedented in human history.

In other words, this is not merely a matter of principle. If scientists are right, this is a matter of life and death for poten-tially large numbers of creatures, including humans. Matters of life and death are central to the concerns of Jewish thought and religion. So we Jews must ask: What do Jewish teachings demand of us in the

matter of global warming?From a Jewish perspective, it makes no

difference that there are those, including a small number of scientists, who dispute the science and therefore that the conclusions are the source of alarm. Because global warming might lead to human deaths, it falls into the category of “safek nefashot,” or occasions when human life might be at risk. And Jewish law is unambiguous when life might be at risk: You are obligated to “err” in the direction of caution.

So on Yom Kippur, if a pregnant woman says she is fine without eating, but a doctor says her life is at risk, you are obligated

See “Goals” on page 4

3 JULY 27, 2017 ■ THE REPORTER

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The staff members of Jewish Family Service were honored with the Distinguished Service Award at the 102nd Annual Meeting held in the Linder Room at the Scranton Jewish Community Center on June 27.

JFS is said to pride itself on “the continuity and lon-gevity of its staff.” Anne Boland, Don Minkoff, Maggy Bushwick and Peter Dunford, along with JFS Executive Director Sheila Nudelman Abdo, have all been with JFS for more than 20 years.

“Through the experience and knowledge they bring to the job each day, it has allowed the agency to thrive and grow throughout the years,” noted a JFS representative.

As part of the annual meeting, JFS also installed new officers and directors. Officers nominated to serve a one-year term include Eric Weinberg, president; El-liot Schoenberg, first vice president; Deirdre Spelman, second vice president; Seth Gross, treasurer; and Leah Laury, secretary.

Directors nominated to serve a three-year term ending June 30, 2020, include Paulette Okun, Gayle Baar, Stacy Nivert and Ann Monsky. Larrissa Schwass was nominated to serve a consecutive three-year term

JFSNEPA honors staff and installs new officers at annual meeting

L-r: Anne Boland, Don Minkoff, Maggy Bushwick and Peter Dunford were honored with the Distinguished Service Award.

L-r: New JFS board members Paulette Okun, Gayle Thorpe Baar, Stacy Hume Nivert and Ann Lebowitz Monsky.

ending June 30, 2020.Special thanks were given to those leaving the board,

including James Ellenbogan, David Kaplan, Natalie Gelb and Michael Noto.

Established in 1915, Jewish Family Service is a hu-man service organization that aims to reflect the Jewish tradition of caring and compassion for all people in

need. Through professional counseling, advocacy and educational programming, its services seek to enhance and strengthen the quality of individual, family and community life. This agency mission is said to drive all services and activities of Jewish Family Service.

Federation leaders met with government reps to discuss healthcareBY MARK SILVERBERG

Representatives from the Jewish Federation of North-eastern Pennsylvania met on July 5 at the Federation office in Scranton with Daniel Brandt, the chief of staff for Republican Senator Pat Toomey, and Frank Mazza, the regional manager, to discuss the implications for Medicaid recipients of the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 currently being debated in the U.S. Senate.

Those invited to this private meeting included Rabbi Samuel Sandhaus, of the Jewish Home of Eastern Penn-sylvania; Sheila Nudelman-Abdo, executive director of Jewish Family Service of Northeastern Pennsylva-nia; Doug Fink, president of the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania; David Fallk, Community Relations Committee chairman; and Mark Silverberg, executive director of the Jewish Federation of North-eastern Pennsylvania.

While gratitude was expressed to Toomey for his “unswerving” political support for the state of Israel, concern was expressed that both the Jewish Home and

Jewish Family Service would suffer financially should this legislation be passed, Medicaid cuts be approved, federal Medicaid grants to states be capped and the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 become law.

Documentation in that regard was presented both to Brandt and Mazza together, with other position points recommending the bill be vetoed as worded and signifi-cantly modified.

The group expressed disappointment that the legisla-tion retains the cuts to Medicaid first passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in the American Health Care Act of 2017 (H.R. 1628) and – in the long run – makes them substantially worse. It was noted that these cuts will dramatically restructure Medicaid’s federal financ-ing commitment and roll back coverage for millions of people covered by state Medicaid expansions.

Medicaid is a health lifeline for more than 80 million people nationwide, including 37 million children, as well as pregnant women, older adults and children with

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THE REPORTER ■ JULY 27, 20174

disabilities. These cuts will affect nursing homes, since Medicaid pays for two out of three people in nursing homes, and family and children’s agencies, Jewish and non-Jewish alike.

Medicaid covers poor pregnant women in most states and pays for almost half of all births in the nation. Medicaid also pays for much of the mental health and substance use treatment provided in the country, a need that Federation representatives said “cannot be highlighted more than by the raging opioid crisis.”

The Senate bill, as currently worded, seeks to end the federal government’s long-standing commitment from Medic-aid’s inception to a matching formula with the states. It was noted to Toomey’s rep-resentatives that taking this step reneges on the federal government’s promise to states and to Medicaid beneficiaries that the program remain flexible to adjust for economic downturns, unexpected health care cost increases and emergencies. The bill caps federal Medicaid payments starting in 2020, with a growth rate that is lower than the real cost of health care.

Moreover, after five years, it was noted that the bill would make even deeper cuts by changing to a lower growth rate – even lower than the House-passed bill. This lower rate is believed to not keep pace with the rising cost of health care, nor will it adjust for major demographic changes that are coming across the country, such as the aging of the baby boomers, who will begin to turn 80 years old just as the deepest cuts take effect.

The cap on Medicaid fundamentally restructures the program and limits federal spending, but it does not lower the cost of caring for Medicaid beneficiaries, nor does it improve the care being provided. It simply passes costs and fiscal risks from the federal government to the states.

Leaders Continued from page 3The end result will be millions more

without health insurance, fewer benefits and services, and lower provider pay-ments. These cuts will hurt low-income and vulnerable individuals, children, the disabled and older adults who have nowhere else to turn when health care providers such as Jewish hospitals, nurs-ing homes, group homes, and family and children’s agencies cannot maintain the necessary level of staffing to provide quality care, are forced to turn Medicaid recipients away or, even worse, close their doors.

Concern was expressed as well by the findings of the Congressional Budget Office that by 2026 the Better Care Reconciliation Act will result in $772 billion in federal budget reductions, 26 percent, to Medicaid funding and lead to a loss in coverage for 22 million people overall, including 15 million from Medicaid specifically.

As the Budget Office noted, the federal share of Medicaid spending under the Senate bill eventually will be substantially lower than the average annual increase in real health care costs and will not adjust enough to offset these costs. Because the cap will not reflect the real cost of health care inflation and additional risks, the bill will cause far deeper cuts, estimated at 40 percent, in the years after 2026.

The CBO thus concluded that the Better Care Reconciliation Act will shift significant costs and risk to state and lo-cal governments, providers and patients, thus exacerbating the existing strain on the program.

In short, due to these federal reductions in funding, states will be left with no choice but to either commit more state funds to make up the difference, which they cannot afford to do, or reduce Medicaid enrollment, reduce eligibility for Medicaid benefits or reduce payment rates. In fact,

the Budget Office found that by 2026, for people under age 65, enrollment in Medicaid will fall by 16 percent. If true, then converting Medicaid to the proposed per capita cap will cause irreparable harm not only to the millions who depend on the program, but also to the entire network of providers who care for them.

Those attending the meeting with Brandt and Mazza expressed their con-cern that this legislation would roll back years of progress in caring for vulnerable populations and promote perverse conse-quences, such as:

People who desperately need Medic-aid will become uninsured and will turn increasingly to more expensive emergency rooms for care;

States will be forced to cut back on crucial Medicaid services, such as home and community-based services, effective-ly forcing people with disabilities and older adults who are capable of living in the community with proper home and community-based services into nursing homes that will be hard-pressed to accept them, as most of their patients are funded through Medicaid;

to feed her. By the same token, if the doctor says she is fine, but she says she is failing, you are similarly obligated to feed her. What this means is that even if the “alarmists” only might be right, we are obligated to take the steps they advise. If human life might be at risk, we must act so as to avert the risk.

One might respond that the Yom Kippur case pertains to someone who is already alive, while the concern for global warming extends to those who will live (and die) in the future. But Judaism is also clear in insisting that our obligations extend not only to those who live today, but also to future generations. As Moses, speaking for God, says in Deuteronomy 29:13-14: “I make this covenant... not with you alone, but both with those who are standing here with us this day before the Lord our God and with those who are not with us this day.” The covenant, with its obligations to save lives, is a “generation to generation” covenant.

Finally, our obligation as Jews extends not just to our own species, but to the world as a whole and to all of God’s creatures within it. Psalms declares that “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s” (24:1).

States will be forced to curtail their mental health and substance abuse treat-ment services, which are said to be needed “now more than ever”;

States will be forced to reduce already low provider payment rates, thus further decreasing the pool of providers serving Medicaid beneficiaries and increasing waiting times for critical services; and

Healthcare providers and entities that care for vulnerable populations will suffer significant financial losses. As a result, these agencies will be forced to lay off staff or close their doors altogether, resulting in significant job losses and further straining state economies.

Documentation supporting these points, together with detailed analy-ses provided by the Jewish Home and JFS on the potential effect of this bill on their operations, was provided to Toomey’s representatives.

For these many reasons, those who attended the meeting with Toomey’s rep-resentatives requested that the senator’s representatives convey to Toomey the Federation’s opposition to the Better Care Reconciliation Act as currently worded.

Goals Continued from page 2We are, as Leviticus announces, mere “resident-aliens” (25:23) on the land. But doesn’t Psalms (115:16) also teach that “the heavens belong to the Lord while He gave the earth to the children of men”? Yes, says the Talmud, but only after we take responsibility for the earth by recogniz-ing its creator and following the creator’s commandments to care for it (see Berakhot 35b). The earth is not ours to exploit – let alone to destroy – at will. It is ours only if we are good stewards. As Genesis 2:15 says, we are placed in this “garden” of ours “to work it and to guard it.”

It would be unfair to say that Judaism requires us to stay in the Paris climate agreement; biblical and rabbinic prescrip-tions are not simplistically translatable into the details of 21st-century policy. But Judaism does require us to pursue the goals of the Paris accords and even more. The fact that questions remain does not change this conclusion. In the view of Judaism, the survival of the earth and its creatures is our responsibility.

David Kraemer is the Joseph J. and Dora Abbell Librarian and professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

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The Olympics of Jewish innovators

A group photo at the 2017 ROI Summit in Jerusalem (photo by Snir Kazir)

BY ELIANA RUDEEJNS.org

As the so-called “Jewish Olympics” (the Maccabiah Games) kicked off re-cently in Israel, another Olympic-style Jewish event sought to ignite global Jewish leadership. From July 2-6, the 2017 Return on Investment (or ROI) Summit in Jerusa-lem hosted more than 150 young Jewish leaders from 29 countries. An initiative of the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, the summit is the flagship pro-gram of the ROI Community, a movement that states it “connects dynamic Jewish leaders from across the globe, enabling them to turn their passion into action and shape the future of the Jewish world.”

Coming to Jerusalem from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Americas, ROI Summit participants led initiatives that were just as diverse as the range of Olympic sports. Some aimed to build bridges between Israelis and Palestinians, others work to improve life for underpriv-ileged communities outside of the Jewish community, and others put a new spin on arts and culture. Here is just a sampling:

Sarah Rosen is the author of the Porn-4Jews blog and the “Kosher Porn” book, featuring photographs of (fully clothed) Jewish men and women – the kind you’d take home to meet your parents – depicting Jewish traditions flirtatiously.

Jacob Weisenthal, operations manager for Semilla Nueva, is working to develop a species of corn in Guatemala to address local malnutrition.

Julia Spiegel, a social justice and im-pact litigation attorney for the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office in California, is leading a case against President Donald Trump’s executive order stripping sanctu-ary jurisdictions of federal funding.

Jewish and American-Israeli rapper Rami Even-Esh, better known as Kosha Dillz, has shared stages and songs with

everyone from Eminem to Macklemore to Matisyahu.

Amid the diversity of their initiatives, summit participants shared a broader goal: reshaping the Jewish future. As the name “Return on Investment” suggests, the gathering’s goal is to invest in young leaders within the Jewish community through workshops, networking and brainstorming, hoping for a social impact that will positively affect the global and Jewish landscapes. In a “brain date extrav-aganza,” participants networked with Is-raeli change-makers in speed-dating-like meetings, enabling the local experts to tap into the summit’s talent. The summit also included peer-led workshops.

“The conference has been this mish-mash of the most successful people I’ve ever met,” rapper Even-Esh told the Haym Salomon Center. “It’s the perfect place to come and share our stories and talents, because everyone here just gets it.”

The ROI Community offers ongoing opportunities for professional develop-ment, networking and financial support, such as micro-grants of $2,000 for proj-ects. Philanthropist Lynn Schusterman, co-founder and chairwoman of her fam-ily’s foundation, said the ROI Summit “is much more than a conference. It is a fertile meeting ground for the most creative, talented young minds working in the Jewish world.

“It is no coincidence that we bring them together in Jerusalem, a city that has both challenged and inspired humankind for thousands of years,” she said. “It is here that we hope these rising young leaders will connect, create and collaborate on a vision for the future of our community.”

Eliana Rudee is a fellow with the Haym Salomon Center news and public policy group. Her bylines have been featured in USA Today, New York Daily News, Forbes and The Hill.

The Temple Hesed Social Action Committee is gearing up for its annual back to school backpack project for 2017. Lackawanna County children in need, identified by local social service agencies, are provided with new clothing and a backpack filled with supplies for the first day of school. Please consider support-ing this very worthwhile project. You can be matched with a child (grades Pre-K to 6th) to provide all or some of the needed items, or you can make a cash donation and we will purchase the items for you. Any monetary donation would be greatly appreciated, and the following guidelines will help you see what your donation will provide.

Back to School Backpack Project

Sponsor a child (backpack with clothes & supplies) $100 Backpack with school supplies $50 Backpack or school supplies $25

Please contact Temple Hesed at 570-344-7201 if you wish to sponsor a child, and provide an email address where we can send you the child’s information. Checks should be made out to Temple Hesed, with “Back to School” designated in the memo

line. If you want to purchase the needed supplies, the Temple will provide a list of what is needed for each child. Donations of backpacks and school supplies can be dropped off at Temple Hesed or the JCC reception area during normal business hours through August 18th, but earlier is much appreciated.Your contribution will help ensure that children start the school year with the confidence and tools they need to succeed. Thank you in advance for your participation. “It takes a community to raise a child.”

Temple Hesed, Social Action Committee,1 Knox Rd., Scranton, PA 18505

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school districts around the country list their curriculum materials on their websites. APT President Charles Jacobs told JNS.org his group “will continue to build support for a policy of transparency, so that parents and citizens can know what is being taught to Newton’s students.”

In response to a request for copies of the materials, Joel Stembridge, principal of Newton South High School, said the re-quester would need to pay $3,643 to cover photocopying expenses. Eventually, Free-dom of Information Act requests were filed by Judicial Watch and others, including JNS.org and APT. Judicial Watch’s request forced the release of nearly 500 pages of material.

Newton Mayor Setti Warren, a member of the nine-person School Committee, attended committee meetings on the textbooks issue, but did not actively participate in the discus-sions, according to community members. Warren, who is now a candidate for the Demo-cratic nomination for Massachusetts governor, did not respond to requests for comment from JNS.org.

Several mainstream Jewish organizations in Boston, including the local chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, initially denied that biased materials were being used in the schools. They also criticized APT for organizing protests against the Newton school authori-ties. Later, the New England ADL changed its position, agreeing that the “Arab World Studies Notebook” and another anti-Israel text, “A Muslim Primer,” should not have been used in schools.

The CAMERA monograph reports that, as a result of the controversy, “there has been some change in the selection of materials” by Newton officials and “more careful vetting of them.” Yet some of the supplemental materials that Newton teachers use “continue to favor fringe perspectives,” according to the study.

Steven Stotsky, the monograph’s author, told JNS.org the situation “remains unresolved,” pointing out that Newton North High School hosted another anti-Israel speaker in June. Since no curriculum materials have been shown to the parents since 2015, “we don’t know” if any of the anti-Israel books are still being used, Stotsky said.

Textbooks Continued from page 1

CONTROVERSIES AROUND THE COUNTRYOther texts have been at the center of similar contro-

versies elsewhere around the U.S. in recent years.Parents in Tennessee’s Williamson County complained

to school authorities in 2013 about a textbook called “The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography.” In a section on the reasons for the rise of terrorism, the book asks, “If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restau-rant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?”

The protests, which were led by Christian pro-Israel activist Laurie Cardoza-Moore and supported by the Jewish Federation of Nashville, prompted the Tennessee state legislature to take steps to ensure greater parental involvement in the selection of textbooks.

Further, the book’s publisher, Pearson Education, removed the suicide bomber passage from subsequent editions. But Cardoza-Moore told JNS.org her campaign was “only a partial victory, because ‘The Cultural Land-scape’ contains other biased statements about Israel that were not removed.”

“Israeli Apartheid Week,” an annual global anti-Israel showcase, in May 2010 on the campus of University of California, Los Angeles. According to the Brand Israel Group, only 54 percent of U.S. college students lean more toward Israel than the Palestinians, down from 73 percent in 2010. (Photo by AMCHA Initiative)

In Georgia’s Sumter County, Campbell Middle School parent Hal Medlin complained in 2011 about a class assignment featuring a fictitious letter from a Saudi woman who de-fended Islamic sharia law and her husband’s polygamy on the grounds that she was being “cared for” by her husband. Conservative activist Pamela Geller, who joined the pro-tests against the Campbell Middle School assignment, told JNS.org the letter was “an outrageous whitewash of the subjugation of women by Islam.”

The curriculum unit also included a doc-ument in which a pro-Palestinian activist suggested terrorist attacks against Israeli Jews are “understandable.”

In neighboring Henry County, school au-thorities responded to complaints about the text by withdrawing it from the curriculum. Sumter County officials took no such action, but Sharon Coletti – president of the InspirEd curriculum developer, which had prepared the controversial materials for Georgia pub-

lic schools – told JNS.org that “the topics of women’s rights and the West Bank have largely been dropped [from statewide curricula], so we removed” the texts.

Parents at a high school in Pittsburgh complained to Curriculum Watch’s Alfonsi in 2007 about a teacher’s use of “Habibi,” a young adult novel by Naomi Shihab Nye. Alfonsi found that the book has a “strongly pro-Pales-tinian slant, including extreme accusations about ‘Israeli oppression.’” The fact that it was being used in an Ad-vancement Placement English class “meant that it was indoctrinating some of the brightest kids in the school,” she said. As a result of Alfonsi’s discussions with school officials, “Habibi” was dropped from the class’ curriculum.

“The problem is that for every school that removes an anti-Israel text, there are a hundred more that are continuing to use it,” Alfonsi said, adding, “When I began this work 20 years ago, we were reviewing cur-riculum materials used for the sixth-12th grades. Now we are seeing anti-Israel in bias in texts going all the way down to the fourth grade. I’m concerned that many in the Jewish community still do not recognize how serious this problem is.”

Each year at this time the Jewish Federation of Northeastern Pennsylvania calls upon members of our community to assist in defraying the expense of issuing our regional Jewish newspaper, The Reporter.

The newspaper is delivered twice of month (except for December and July which are single issue months) to each and every identifiable Jewish home in Northeastern Pennsylvania.

As the primary Jewish newspaper of our region, we have tried to produce a quality publication for you that offers our readership something on everythingfrom opinions and columns on controversial issues that affect our people and our times, to publicity for the events of our affiliated agencies and organizations to life cycle events, teen columns, personality profiles, letters to the editor, the Jewish community calendar and other columns that cover everything from food to entertainment.

The Federation assumes the financial responsibility for funding the enterprise at a cost of $26,400 per year and asks only that we undertake a small letter writing mail campaign to our recipients in the hope of raising $10,000 from our readership to alleviate a share of that responsibility.

We would be grateful if you would care enough to take the time to make a donation for our efforts in bringing The Reporter to your door.

As always, your comments, opinions & suggestions are always welcome.

With best wishes,Mark Silverberg, Executive DirectorJewish Federation of NE Pennsylvania601 Jefferson AvenueScranton, PA 18510

7 JULY 27, 2017 ■ THE REPORTER

Check out the Federation’s new, updated website at www.jewishnepa.org or find it on FacebookÊ

Emmanuel Macron spoke at a July 16 ceremony commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Vel d’Hiv Holocaust roundup in Paris. (Photo by Kamil ZihnIoglu/AFP/Getty Images)

Six reasons why Macron’s speech about the Holocaust in France was groundbreaking

ANALYSISBY CNAAN LIPHSHIZ

PARIS (JTA) – It wasn’t the first time that a French president acknowledged his nation’s Ho-locaust-era guilt, but Emmanuel Macron’s speech on July 16 was nonetheless groundbreaking in format, content and style. Delivered during a ceremony at the Vel d’Hiv Holocaust memorial monument exactly 75 years after French police officers rounded up 13,152 Jews there for deportation to Nazi death camps, the 35-minute address was Macron’s first about the Holocaust since the centrist won the presidency in May.

Evocative and more forthright than any of the speeches on the subject delivered by Macron’s predecessors, his address “relieved the feeling of isolation” experienced by many Jews due to antisemitism today, according to Rabbi Delphine Horvilleur, who leads the Liberal Jewish movement in France. Macron’s speech “made me proud to be French and Jewish,” she said.

Here are six significant ways that the address differed from those of previous French presidents, including in scope; the unusual role played at the event by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; its references to present realities; and Macron’s emotional delivery.

It was the first time that an Israeli head of state attended the annual commemoration for the Vel d’Hiv deportations of July 16-17, 1942, named after the Velodrome d’Hiver stadium that used to stand near the monument. Netanyahu was invited despite objections on Muslim websites, by the Communist Party and the party of the far-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon – although the invitation came from the CRIF federation of French Jewish communities and not by the Elysee Presidential Palace, as reported by some French media. The Elysee, which organized the event, did not object publicly to Netanyahu’s attendance and facilitated it.

The arrival of Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, in a motorcade whose limousines sported gold-fringed Israeli flags electrified the predominantly Jewish audience of 1,200 people. Holocaust survivors in their 80s and 90s approached the monument railing to catch a glimpse of the Israelis as others reacted with thunderous applause. They oohed and applauded as Netanyahu delivered the first part of his speech in French, which he speaks with a thick accent and some errors, but understands with-out requiring translation. And they nodded as he urged Macron to stand with Israel and fight “the cancerous spread of militant Islam” and “hate that starts with the Jews, but never ends there,” as Netanyahu defined it. But their enthusiasm for Netanyahu was dwarfed by the deafening applause they gave Macron when he responded to Netanyahu.

Addressing Netanyahu, Macron assured the Israeli leader and listeners that “we will continue our fight against terrorism and the worst kinds of fanaticism,” adding: “So yes, we will never surrender to the expressions of hatred; we will not surrender to anti-Zionism because it is a reinvention of antisemitism.”

Articulated in recent years by Emmanuel Valls, a for-mer prime minister of France, Macron’s statement was the first time an incumbent president in France equated anti-Zionism – a fairly popular sentiment in France – with antisemitism. It triggered several emotional yelps from the audience and applause so vigorous, it caused the tarp strung up over the monument plaza for security reasons to vibrate.

There was another wave of applause when, unusual-

ly, Macron and Netanyahu hugged publicly after Netanyahu’s speech.

Much of Macron’s speech was devoted to establishing France’s complicity in the murder of 25 per-cent of its Jewish population during the Holocaust and deconstructing apologist views on the subject. Speaking plainly and avoiding metaphors, Macron sounded less like a politician than a historian or a prosecutor who is committed to factual accuracy. In the first admis-sion of Holocaust culpability by a French president, Jacques Chirac in 1995 said that “Frenchmen, the

French state assisted the criminal folly of the occupier,” resulting in a failure to uphold the nation’s values and an “irreparable crime.” And Francois Hollande in 2012 said the roundups were a “crime committed in France, by France.”

But the Macron address delivered on July 16 “was a precedent-setting speech that went deeper, on a ped-agogic level, than addresses that preceded it by French presidents,” said Serge Klarsfeld, a historian and one of France’s leading researchers on the Holocaust. Macron’s speech was the first presidential address that named in-dividual collaborators who helped the Nazis kill Jews, including Rene Bousquet, a police chief who was in-dicted for planning the Vel d’Hiv roundups, but died in 1993 before his trial. “France organized the roundups,” Macron said. “Not a single German participated.” And so France “in almost every aspect organized the death” of the victims.

More jarringly to many French ears, he said the collaborationist Vichy government “was not replaced

overnight” by the free French government that succeeded it after the country’s liberation in World War II. “Min-isters, civil servants, police officers, economy officials, unions, teachers” from the Vichy government were all incorporated into the Third Republic that replaced it, Macron said.

By touching on France’s perceived failure to purge itself of collaborators and their legacy, Macron differenti-ated himself from all of France’s presidents after Francois Mitterrand. Klarsfeld praised Macron for pointing out how Mitterrand and post-war leader Charles de Gaulle “remained silent on the historical truth” about collab-oration “in favor of appeasement and reconciliation.” Macron said he “does not judge” his predecessors who remained silent on the issue.

During his speech, Macron said, “It is very convenient to view Vichy as a monstrosity, born of nothing and re-turned to nothing.” But it is “false. We cannot base any pride on a lie.” Rather than weaken the French nation, as argued by National Front politicians, admitting its guilt “opened the path to correcting” its faults, Macron said.

Speaking about the Vichy puppet government, Ma-cron deconstructed the main revisionist talking points put forward by the French far right led by the National Front party under Marine Le Pen. In April, Le Pen ar-gued that the government’s actions in World War II do not represent France as a nation. “I reject the attempts to absolve one’s conscious by those who claim Vichy wasn’t France,” Macron said. No other French president had said this in these terms.

Responding to repeated pleas by French Jews – in-cluding at the Vel d’Hiv event during a speech by CRIF President Francis Kalifat – Macron for the first time commented on the death of Sarah Halimi. Halimi, a 66-year-old physician, was killed by a Muslim neighbor,

Members of the audience listened to French President Emmanuel Macron near the Vel d’Hiv memorial in Paris on July 16. (Photo by Cnaan Liphshiz)

See “Macron” on page 11

THE REPORTER ■ JULY 27, 20178

fed honor roll full page

9 JULY 27, 2017 ■ THE REPORTER

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THE REPORTER ■ JULY 27, 201710

D’VAR TORAH

BY RABBI MARJORIE BERMAN, SPIRITUALDIRECTOR, RECONSTRUCTIONISTRABBINICAL COLLEGE IN PHILADELPHIA

Devarim (Tisha B’Av), Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22On Tisha B’Av, or the ninth of the month of Av, we

mourn the destruction of both the first and second Temples in Jerusalem. There are other catastrophes associated with the day as well, though not all of them are historically accurate, including the end of the Bar Kochba rebellion in 135 C.E., the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290 C.E., and from Spain in 1492. How could it come to pass that all of these terrible things befell us on the same day?

There is a midrash that concerns the biblical story of the spies that were sent out to report on the inhabitants of the land that the Israelites were seeking to conquer. When they came back on the 9th of Av with an unfavor-able report, the Israelites cried out in fear and wished they were back in Egypt. In the midrash, God declares: “You wept without cause, I will therefore make this day an eternal day of mourning for you.” Sort of a “Why are you crying? I’ll give you something to cry about!”

The reality is, all change involves loss, even if it is a change for the better. Because of this, we are often so resistant to change that it takes a catastrophe or the destruction of something we hold dear to push us to do something differently. When the second Temple was destroyed, much of what had been central to Judaism was lost, and the traditional liturgy expresses hope for its rebuilding in the daily prayers. But, because of the second Temple’s destruction, a new Judaism was born. Rather than a centralized rite of daily sacrifices overseen by a priestly caste, we became “a nation of priests.” Each family’s table became the altar, and prayer and study replaced the sacrifice of animals. Rabbinic Judaism emerged as the new path forward.

In our country and our world today, we are daily watch-ing institutions and ideals being torn apart. The vision of a protected planet, interdependent nations, heath care for all, a country which promotes justice and equality for all regardless of race, gender, religion or wealth – all of these are in danger. But we would not have arrived at this moment if there weren’t aspects of our democracy

that were already broken. People throughout our country and around the world are realizing that democracy is not a spectator sport. The destruction happening in our democracy and on our planet is devastating, but it will push us to find a better way, or we won’t survive.

However, in order to embrace the new, we need to mourn the old, even if the new way is better or more ful-filling. All change involves loss. Our tradition recognizes this, and gives us Tisha B’Av, a day that actually concludes a three-week period of mourning, a day of grieving all the losses that have ever come to us, as preparation for the new. We go from fasting and listening to the Book of Lamentations into Elul, the month of preparation for Rosh Hashanah, the New Year. Destruction and loss are part of the cycle of making way for the new. There is even the tradition that the Messiah will be born on Tisha B’Av!

Many modern Jews tend to ignore Tisha B’Av. I invite you to think about what losses you want to acknowledge in your life, to give yourself time to mourn, and then to look up and see what newness or transformation is waiting to emerge.

Tisha B’Av – loss? Or transformation?

Jewish Outdoor Escape 2017 The Mosaic Outdoor Clubs of America

announced its 2017 Jewish Outdoor Escape: r’AZ-ma-t’AZ, an Arizona Adventure. The event will take place August 31-September

4 – Labor Day weekend – in the high-desert town of Prescott, AZ. Located between Phoenix, Sedona and the Grand Canyon, Prescott is home to a kosher-style summer camp that will be Mosaic’s base for five days. The summer camp for grown-ups features trails for hiking, biking and horseback riding. Pre- and post-trip options are available. For more information, visit www.mosaicoutdoor.org/ or contact the organization at event@MosaicOutdoor.org.

11 JULY 27, 2017 ■ THE REPORTER

Check out the Federation’s new, updated website at www.jewishnepa.org or find it on FacebookÊ

Kobili Traore, who shouted about Allah before he killed her. Halimi’s daughter said that Traore had called her a “dirty Jew.” Yet in what CRIF considers a “cover-up,” the indictment filed against Traore recently does categorize the killing as a hate crime.

In his address, Netanyahu counted Halimi among other French Jews murdered in recent years by Islamists. Macron replied: “Despite the denials of the murderer, the judiciary must as soon as possible provide maximum clarity on the death of Sarah Halimi.” Klarsfeld said it was a strong message that will “probably induce change” in how Traore is tried.

A rational and analytical thinker with a background in banking and economics, Macron surprised many of his listeners with the apparent intensity of his intonation and body language during the speech. “Above all, the speech was special for his palpable emotion,” Horvilleur said.

Like many others, Horvilleur, a Liberal rabbi, was “deeply moved” by Macron’s remarks at the end of his speech about how the children deported from Vel d’Hiv informs how he views his role as president. Children “who wanted to go to school, graduate, find work, start a family, read, watch a show, learn and travel,” he said. “I want to tell those children that France has not forgotten them. That she loves them. That their tragic fate demands of us never to give up to hate, rancor or despair.”

Macron Continued from page 7

BY JTA STAFFBUENOS AIRES, Argentina (JTA) – A cache of 75

original Nazi objects discovered in June by the Argentine Federal Police has been evaluated as “unprecedented” and “the biggest” discovery of its type. The objects, dis-covered in a hidden room of a house in the northern part of the city, included equipment used for Nazi medical experiments during the Holocaust. They were analyzed a week ago at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France, Federal Police Commissioner Marcelo El Haibe told JTA on June 19.

The police found a bust relief of Adolf Hitler, medical devices marked with swastikas used to measure head and body size, Nazi puzzles for children and knives, among other objects. Among the objects discovered was a magnifying glass attached to a photo of Hitler using the magnifying glass.

“We checked some marks and characteristics, and it is the same object that Hitler holds in his hands in the photo,” El Haibe, a member of Interpol who accompa-nied the pieces to Lyon, told JTA. “Interpol colleagues from Germany, Israel and United States were surprised by the globally unprecedented discovery. No one has a record of this magnitude a discovery of original Nazis objects, and we have started a collaborative process to search the route of the objects to Argentina.”

According to El Haibe, who also serves as the chief of the Protection of Cultural Heritage department of the federal police, only a very high level of Nazi officer had access to this quality and quantity of objects, and apparently tried to save the objects when the Nazi regime was failing.

On June 19, the Argentine Jewish political umbrella DAIA displayed some of the objects at its headquarters in the AMIA Jewish center here. The AMIA building was destroyed in a 1994 terrorist bombing and rebuilt in 1999.

DAIA President Ariel Cohen Sabban praised the police for their work in making the discovery. “From this building, we spoke several times about the lack of security in this country, but today it’s time to recognize the good work done by the police and the Security Ministry,” he said. “These objects are an irrefutable testimony to the Nazi horror and that Argentina was a refuge” for the Nazis.

Before receiving an award from DAIA, Security Min-ister Patricia Bullrich spoke to more than 200 attendees

A trove of Nazi-era objects in Argentina

Some of the Nazi-era objects discovered by Argentine police. (Photo by Leonardo Kremenchuzky/DAIA)

crowded in a small room where a sample of the objects were on display. She said her ministry has asked the judge in charge of investigating the discovery that all of the objects be donated to the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires, “so that all Argentinians and also visitors who come to Buenos Aires can see this shocking collection.”

Among the attendees were Germany Embassy offi-cials, judges, intellectuals and businessmen, as well as

the Jewish philanthropists Eduardo Elsztain and Marcelo Mindlin, who was named recently the president of the Holocaust Museum of Buenos Aires. “This collection is a great responsibility; we will prepare our site to receive this contribution,” Mindlin told JTA. “There will be a lot of fanatics that will want to enter, there will be people trying to steal objects,” he added, noting that “huge security issues” must be worked out.

In June 2016, a collector from Argentina paid $680,000 for a pair of Nazi-owned underpants and other memora-bilia. “It’s impossible that one collector would have this invaluable amount of original Nazi objects,” DAIA vice president Alberto Indij told JTA. “These [objects] likely belonged directly to Hitler or Joseph Mengele. Someone escaped with all this objects. There isn’t a person that bought all this. No, these were Nazi officers trying to hide and save these objects.”

The magnifying glass and accompanying photo of Hitler were not put on public display, but Indij saw them at Interpol headquarters and confirmed their existence to JTA.

Mengele, a doctor who performed experiments on Jewish prisoners, lived in Argentina for a decade after

See “Trove” on page 12

Continuing a Rosh Hashanahfund-raising tradition started by Roseann Smith Alperin (O.B.M.),

a former Temple Hesed Sisterhood president, Hesed, Hallah and Honey,benefits Temple programs and continues Roseann’s good work.

• The Gift Bag — contains a challah, container of honey, yom tov candles, an apple and candies. ——$20 delivered (Kosher challah - add $1)

• Flowering Plant — A beautiful Mum in a basket. Perfect for those who cannot accept gifts of foods.

We are delivering the gift bags and plants onErev Rosh Hashanah: Wednesday, September 20, 2017.

To order: Please makechecks payable to

“Temple Hesed Sisterhood”. Specify plain or raisin

challah or the flowering mum.

Mail to: Carol Leventhal, 125 Welsh Hill Road,

Clarks Summit, PA 18411. For more information,

call Carol at 570-587-2931or email jeff@graphicsart.net.

DELIVERIES WILL BE MADE TO ANY ADDRESS IN SCRANTON OR THE ABINGTONS

Hesed, Hallah and Honey Order FormOrder before Sept. 13 • Delivered September 20

Name __________________________________________

Address _________________________________________

________________________________________________

Phone __________________________________________

Enclose check, made payable to: Temple Hesed Sisterhood

Mail order to:Carol Leventhal125 Welch Hill Road Clarks Summit PA 18411

Hesed, Hallah and Honey

All Orders Must Be In By September 13, 2017

Gift Bag $20 • Mums $22

YOU

R N

AM

EG

ETTIN

G G

IFTS

Name __________________________________________

Address _________________________________________

________________________________________________

Phone __________________________________________

¨Challah___ Plain ___Raisin $20/each

¨Kosher Challah - add $1/each

¨Mums = $22/each

Name __________________________________________

Address _________________________________________

________________________________________________

Phone __________________________________________

Name __________________________________________

Address _________________________________________

________________________________________________

Phone __________________________________________

Volunteers Needed! We need gift bag packers to begin assembling the bags at 10 a.m. on Tues-day, Sept. 19, 2017 and we need people to make deliveries startingthe morning of Wednesday, Sept. 20, 2017.Both activities will take place at the Leventhal residence at 125 Welsh Hill Road, Clarks Summit.If you can help, please call: 570-587-2931 or email jeff@graphicsart.net

¨Challah___ Plain ___Raisin $20/each

¨Kosher Challah - add $1/each

¨Mums = $22/each

¨Challah___ Plain ___Raisin $20/each

¨Kosher Challah - add $1/each

¨Mums = $22/each

THE REPORTER ■ JULY 27, 201712

Israeli company that produces water from air launches first pilot program in Florida

Miami Gardens Mayor Oliver Gilbert III, second from left, Water-Gen USA President Yehuda Kaploun and Lior Haiat, consul general to Israel in Miami, toasted Water-Gen in Miami Gardens, FL, on June 20. (Photo courtesy of Mendy Studio)

BY ANDREW TOBIN(JTA) – Large parts of Florida are suffering from

severe drought, and hurricane season threatens to make things worse. Enter Water-Gen, an Israeli company whose technology captures humidity to extract drinking water from the air.

On June 19, the South Florida city of Miami Gardens announced it was launching a pilot program with the company to address its water problems – the first U.S. city to do so. “As representatives responsible for the quality of life and safety of our communities, preparedness and readiness to counter crises is mandatory,” Mayor Oliver Gilbert III said at a City Hall news conference. “Water Gen’s pilot will enable us to measure its use for clean drinking water if needed for hurricane relief and any other emergency water situation that may arise.”

During the last weeks of June, Miami Gardens will use a midsized Water-Gen generator to produce drinking water for its residents. Water-Gen officials said they hope the pilot leads to contracts with Miami Gardens and other parts of Florida. The company’s largest generator yields as much as 825 gallons of water per day for only 10 cents a gallon, mostly in energy costs, according to the company.

Florida gets much of its drinking water from the Floridian Aquifer and the Biscayne Aquifer, as well as from surface water from Lake Okeechobee and other lakes, but population increases have strained available sources. Because of the drought, Miami-Dade County, where Miami Gardens in located, has put restrictions on water use, including banning residents from watering outdoors between 10 am and 4 pm.

In addition, Florida is bracing for hurricanes, which hit the state harder than any other and can cause water contami-nation. Hurricane season runs from June through November.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said he sees Water-Gen’s potential to help the state. “I congrat-ulate Mayor Gilbert and the City of Miami Gardens for its leadership in allowing for the demonstration of water generation technology that could be a game-changer,” he said June 19.

Water-Gen’s ambitions extend beyond Florida and the United States. Earlier this year, the company signed deals, together worth $150 million, to produce drinking water in India and Vietnam, two countries that have long faced shortages. About 1.2 billion people, nearly one-fifth of the world’s population, live in areas of water scarcity, according to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Owned by Russian-Israeli entrepreneur and billionaire Michael Mirilashvili, the vice president of the World Jewish Congress, Water-Gen has Jewish friends in high places. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mentioned it in an interview last December with CBS’s “60 Minutes” about Israel’s high-tech prowess. In March, Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz demonstrated the technology on stage at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual policy conference in Washington, DC.

He touted the technology as a way to counter world-wide water scarcity and the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel. “There is no weapon more powerful in the fight against BDS than for Israel to develop technologies that the world cannot live without,” he told the crowd. “You cannot boycott products that you can’t live without.”

the war in the same area of Buenos Aires where the Nazi medical tools were discovered. El Haibe said there could be some link between Mengele and the recently discovered tools. “There are strong coincidences of tools, practices, locations; we are investigating this hypothesis right now,” he said. “But for sure this did not belong to a low-level Nazi follower. This belongs to a very high-level Nazi official who brought them to Argentina.”

Argentina was a refuge for Nazis like Mengele after World War II. Adolf Eichmann was captured in the northern area of Buenos Aires in 1960, and another war criminal, Erich Priebke, also lived there. A video about the Interpol evaluation, dubbed Operation Near East

“Miami Gardens is our first significant pilot program in a U.S. city,” Water-Gen USA President Yehuda Ka-ploun said Monday. “We are ideally positioned to enable communities to tap into a clean and safe drinking water source with a refreshing taste.”

Trove Continued from page 11since many objects of Asian historical significance also were discovered during the raids, was released June 19 by the Argentine Federal Police.

The objects were found June 9 following a nine-month police investigation. They are in the custody of the justice who is tasked with investigating the find, who has put a gag order on most aspects of the case. One suspect identified by the police is not in Argentina. There are Argentine and non-Argentine suspects being investigated, but no further details have been provided. Argentina has had an anti-discrimination law on the books since 1988 that covers the possession and sale of such objects.

13 JULY 27, 2017 ■ THE REPORTER

Check out the Federation’s new, updated website at www.jewishnepa.org or find it on FacebookÊ

NEWS IN BRIEF FROM THE U.S.From JNS.org

Rabbis dispute ADL’s alt-right list, issue own list of the far left

The Anti-Defamation League’s new “hate list” of top alt-right figures “gives a free pass to antisemitism coming from left-wing activists,” a rabbinical group is asserting. The Coalition for Jewish Values, which represents 200 Orthodox rabbis in the U.S. and Canada, also charged that “political motives” were behind the ADL’s inclusion of Corey Stewart, a Virginia conservative who is seeking the Republican nomination to oppose Sen. Tim Kaine. The Coalition countered the ADL’s list by releasing a top 10 list of left-wing activists who, it says, are “far more guilty of anti-Jewish defamatory speech” than those named by the ADL. The Coalition’s list includes Linda Sarsour, the feminist activist and BDS promoter; Hatem Bazian, founder of Students for Justice in Palestine, arguably the most active anti-Israel group on college campuses; Rachel Gilmer, co-author of the Black Lives Matter platform, which accused Israel of genocide; and Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director the anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace.Iran condemns “worthless” U.S. sanctions on ballistic missile program

Iranian officials condemned fresh U.S. sanctions against Iran’s ballistic missile program on July 18, calling the sanctions announcement “contemptible and worth-less.” Iran “will reciprocate the move by imposing sanctions on a number of American natural and legal persons who have taken steps against the Iranian people and other Muslim nations in the region,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said. The Trump admin-

istration enacted new sanctions against Iran on July 18, in an effort to put additional pressure on Tehran while seeking to keep in place the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. “The United States remains deeply concerned about Iran’s malign activities across the Middle East which undermine regional stability, security, and prosperity,” the State Department said in a statement. Iran’s activities “undercut whatever ‘positive contributions’ to regional and international peace and security were intended to emerge” from the nuclear agreement,” the State Department added. The Trump administration on July 17 said Iran remains in compliance with the nuclear deal, despite Trump calling the pact “the worst deal ever” during last year’s election campaign and promising to dismantle the accord.Pence promises U.S. will move embassy to Jerusalem

Vice President Mike Pence said on July 17 that relocating the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem is only a matter of time. “I promise you that the day will come when President Donald Trump moves the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jeru-salem. It is not a question of if, it is only when,” Pence told the 12th annual Christians United for Israel summit in Washington, DC. Pence said he and Trump “stand without apology for Israel today,” and touted the president’s trip to Israel in May. “Standing in Jerusalem, in that ancient and holy city, our president declared for all the world to hear that under his leadership, the United States of America ‘will always stand with Israel,’” said Pence. Trump signed a waiver on June 1 to keep the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv, avoiding a move to Jerusalem for an additional six months. Since Congress passed legislation in 1995 authorizing the relocation of the embassy to Jerusalem, every sitting president has signed successive six-month waivers delaying the move, citing national security concerns.

THE REPORTER ■ JULY 27, 201714

Feature Films (as of September 2016)Dough - An old Jewish baker (Jonathan Pryce) takes on a young Muslim apprentice to save his failing kosher bakery. When his apprentice’s marijuana stash accidentally falls in the mixing dough, the challah starts flying off the shelves! DOUGH is a warmhearted and humorous story about overcoming prejudice and finding redemption in unexpected places. (Shown at the 2017 UJA campaign opening event)Everything is Illuminated - “Everything is Illuminated” tells the story of a young man’s quest to find the woman who saved his grandfather in a small Ukrainian town that was wiped off the map by the Nazi invasion. What starts out as a journey to piece together one family’s story under absurd circumstances turns into a meaningful journey with a powerful series of revelations -- the importance of remembrance, the perilous nature of secrets, the legacy of the Holocaust, and the meaning of friendship. (Donated by Dr. and Mrs. David Malinov)Europa Europa - Based on the autobiography of Solomon Perel, this movie recounts the severe actions a young boy must take in order to survive the Holocaust. (Donated by Dr. and Mrs. David Malinov)Hidden in Silence - Przemysl, Poland, WWII. Germany emerges victorious over the Russians and the city comes under Nazi control. The Jews are sent to the ghettos. While some stand silent, Catholic teenager, Stefania Podgorska, choose the role of a savior and sneaks 13 Jews into her attic.Music Box - In this intense courtroom thriller, Chicago attorney Ann Talbot (Jessica Lange) agres to defend her Hungarian immigrant father against accusations of heinous war crimes committed 50 years earlier.Remember - With the aid of a fellow Auschwitz survivor and a hand-written letter, an elderly man with demntia goes in search of the person responsible for the death of his family. (shown at the 2017 UJA campaign opening event)Munich - Inspired by real events, Munich reveals the intense story of the secret Israeli squad assigned to track down and assassinate the 11 Palestinians believedto have planned the 1972 Munich massacre of 11 Israeli athletes - and the personal toll this mission of revenge takes on the team and the man who led it.Son of Saul - October 1944, Auschwitz-Birkenau. Saul (Géza Röhrig) is a Hungarian member of the Sonderkommando, the group of Jewish prisoners forced to assist the Nazis. While working, Saul discovers the body of a boy he takes for his son. As the Sonderkommando plans a rebellion, Saul decides to carry out an impossible task: save the child’s body, find a rabbi to recite the mourner’s Kaddish and offer the boy a proper burial.(shown at the 2017 UJA campaign opening event)The Book Thief - THE BOOK THIEF tells the inspirational story of a spirited and courageous young girl who transforms the lives of everyone around her when she is sent to live with a new family in World War II Germany.The Jolson Story - THE JOLSON STORY is classic Hollywood biography at its best; a fast-paced, tune-filled extravaganza following the meteoric rise of legendary performer Al Jolson. THE JOLSON STORY was nominated for six 1946 Academy Awards , winning two, (Best Musical Scoring and Best Sound Recording). The Other Son - As he is preparing to join the Israeli army for his national service, Joseph discovers he is not his parents’ biological son and that he was inadvertently switched at birth with Yacine, the son of a Palestinian family from the West Bank. This revelation turns the lives of these two families upside-down, forcing them to reassess their respective identities, their values and beliefs.Woman in Gold - Based on the true story of Maria Altman, played by Helen Mirren, who sought to regain a world famous painting of her aunt plundered by the Nazis during World War II. She did so not just to regain what was rightfully hers but also to obtain some measure of justice for the death, destruction and massive art theft perpetrated by the Nazis. (Donated by Dr. and Mrs. David Malinov)

Non-Feature Films 2016Above and Beyond - In 1948, just three years after the liberation of Nazi death camps, a ragtag group of skilled American pilots - both Jewish and non-Jewish, answered a call for help. In secret and at great personal risk, they smuggled planes out of the U.S., trained behind the Iron Curtain and flew for Israel in its War of Independence. This band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war, they also embarked on personal journeys of discovery and pride. (Shown at the 2016 UJA campaign opening event)Everything is a Present: The Wonder and Grace of Alice Sommer Hertz - This is the uplifting true story of the gifted pianist Alice Sommer Hertz who survived the Theresienstat concentration camp by playing classical piano concerts for Nazi dignitaries. Alice Sommer Hertz lived to the age of 106. Her story is an inspiration.Follow Me: The Yoni Netanyahu Story - Yoni Netanyahu was a complex, passionate individual thrust into defending his country in a time of war and violence. The older brother of Benjamin Natanyahu, the current Israel Prime Minister, Yoni led the miraculous raid on Entebbe in 1976. Although almost all of the Entebbe hostages were saved, Yoni was the lone military fatality. Featuring three Israeli Prime Ministers and recently released audio from the Entebbe raid itself.Hava Nagila (The Movie) - A documentary romp through the history, mystery and meaning of the great Jewish standard. Featuring interviews with Harry Belafonte, Leonard Nimoy and more, the film follows the ubiquitous party song on its fascinating journey from the shtetls of Eastern Europe to the kibbutzim of Palestine to the cul-de-sacs of America.If These Knishes Could Talk tells the story of the New York accent: what it is, how it’s evolved, and the love/hate relationship New Yorkers have with it. It features writer Pete Hamill, director Penny Marshall, attorney Alan Dershowitz and screenwriter James McBride, along with a cast of characters from Canarsie to Tottenville. In between, it explores why New Yorkers eat chawclate and drink cawfee, and how the accent became the vibrant soundtrack of a charming, unforgiving and enduring city.Israel: The Royal Tour - Travel editor Peter Greenberg (CBS News) takes us on magnificent tour of the Jewish homeland, Israel. The tour guide is none other than Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The viewer gets a chance to visit the land of Israel from his own home!Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story (narrated by Dustin Hoffman)- This documentary portrays the contributions of Jewish major leaguers and the special meaning that baseball has had in the lives of American Jews. More than a film about sports, this is a story of immigration, assimilation, bigotry, heroism, the passing on of traditions, the shattering of stereotypes and, most of all, the greatest American pastime.Nicky’s Family - An enthralling documentary that artfully tells the story of how Sir Nicholas Winton, now 104, a British stockbroker, gave up a 1938 skiing holiday to answer a friend’s request for help in Prague and didn’t stop helping until the war’s beginning stopped him. He had saved the lives of 669 children in his own personal Kindertransport.The Case for Israel - Democracy’s Outpost - This documentary presents a vigorous case for Israel- for its basic right to exist, to protect its citizens from terrorism, and to defend its borders from hostile enemies.The Israel Course - A 7-part Israel education series that sheds light on the Holy Land through the ages. Featuring biblical scholars and Middle East experts, including Harvard professor Alan D